UserStories047/heathenx

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What is your Name?

heathenx

Can you give us a Photo?

Headshot hx.jpg

What do you think about Inkscape?

I think Inkscape is one of the easiest to learn and use vector editors out there. The interface is laid out very well and the developers are making constant improvements and refinements as time goes by. I'm sure any new user will appreciate that. I discovered Inkscape back in the 0.37 or 0.38 days when the application wasn't very old and things were quite different than they are today. Three of the major selling points for me were that the application was free of charge, cross-platform, and easy to use. That allowed me to use Inkscape at work on my Windows desktop and at home on my SUSE desktop. Back then I wanted something to help me recreate some logos and illustrations for the company that I work for since the artwork was less than desirable for use in various things. Having them drawn in vector meant that I could export new raster images at pretty much any size that I wanted without loosing detail. To this day I continue to use Inkscape to make new artwork for presentations, to marry some of my CAD elements with artsy elements, to edit some PDF illustrations, and as a bridge to some of my Blender artwork. The fact that Inkscape is flexible makes it extremely valuable for many tasks. The developers are continuing to make improvements so my wish list is getting smaller. I would, however, appreciate some improvements to the rendering speed whenever blurs and filters are applied. It seems the more one adds the more Inkscape will slow down. Additionally, I would like the developers to take notice of what their competitors are doing. This could be Corel Draw, Illustrator, and Xara among others. I'm sure some already do. I wouldn't encourage the “copy cat” strategy but if I were a developer I would constantly be asking myself why people choose to use other vector editors over Inkscape. What do they have that we need? If someone is willing to spend several hundred dollars to have certain features then perhaps those features are worth researching and implementing if the SVG specification allows for it. Finally, I would like to thank every single developer who has improved Inkscape over the years. You are all brilliant rock stars in my eyes. I appreciate your time and energy. :)

Can you give us a Hot Tip for using Inkscape?

Inkscape has so many hidden hot keys or shortcut key combinations for things. It seems like I'm always discovering new ones accidentally. If you haven't already, check out the Keys and Mouse reference in the Help menu.

Can you share some of your Artwork?

Hand.png

How did you do it?

The image is nothing special really but it does illustrate an example of how I use Inkscape with my CAD software. The image is just one of several that I used to make a product assembly manual. I exported the “widget” out of my CAD system in PDF format, imported that into Inkscape along with a digital photograph of my hand wrapped around the “widget”. Then I traced over my hand using the pen tool and joined it to the “widget”. Being able to import PDF's into Inkscape is quite convenient. I appreciate how well that works.

Do you give us permission to use this to promote Inkscape?

Yes.